


Hauntings of a Future Past

by RHGroeninga



Series: Utter Madness [5]
Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Asylum, American Horror Story: Murder House
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Horror, Insanity, Mystery, POV Multiple, Suspense, Time Travel, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-16 03:17:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16077233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RHGroeninga/pseuds/RHGroeninga
Summary: The ghosts of Murder House suddenly find themselves back alive and free from limbo - and in the year 1962.“Tate Langdon.” His name echoed through the hall solemnly as if it was the judgment of god. The speaker was nun with an iron gaze and steel features, probably around his mother’s age. Behind her was a broad guard in uniform. “My name is sister Jude. I think you know why you’re here.”





	1. The Unbelonging

Episode 1

  


-

  


The calm after the storm felt more foreboding than the calm before. Something had changed during that long night. The atmosphere was thick in the dim halls of the asylum, the oppressive silence smothering the soft, tortured sounds that emitted from the misshapen man, rocking in a tight ball on the hard concrete floor of his cell. In the cell next to him was his brother, trying to calm the man with soft spoken words, but this man was only a boy himself, just seventeen, and was just as afraid of what would be happening to them. But more than that was he angry, he was inwardly raging.

  


Their mother had put them there. She had damned the two children she claimed to love to the bug house, damned to waste away forever. Still, it only was confirmation of what he already knew: as soon as she discovered her children were not the perfect human beings she’d expected them to be, she had given up on them. They should have been her pride, but were her shame. So she put them away, literally; in closets, in cupboards, chained up in the attic, and if she deemed it necessary she would even do the worst of the worst. Tate had no illusions. Not anymore.

  


It came thus as no surprise that she’d tried to sent them to the nut house as soon as the opportunity presented itself, but what Tate had _not_ expected was that she’d make her move so quickly and so expertly. She’d upped him one and gained the upper hand before he could even comprehend what was going on. His mother was crafty, he had to give her that, she’d played it cleverly and he could only react with rage and embitterment.

  


Two pair of steps echoed through the silent hall.  Tate waited until they stopped  at his door. Tinkling of large keys, the locked rattled as it turned, the heavy iron door sque a ked on its hinges.  The  _people_ here were unhinged, the door were very much fortified.  Even in his previous state,  even when he’d felt at his strongest, it would’ve been impossible for him to destroy that door.

  


“Tate Langdon.” His name echoed through the hall solemnly as if it was the judgment of god. The speaker was nun with an iron gaze and steel features, probably around his mother’s age. Behind her was a broad guard in uniform. “My name is sister Jude. I think you know why you’re here.”

  


He knew. How he knew. “My mother wants to get rid of me.”

  


Those words seemed to trigger irritation in the stuck-up old nun, as she took an aggressive step forward with the express purpose of looming over his seated position. Good, every weakness of the staff could be turned into an advantage for him...

  


“You put a dagger to your own mother’s neck and threatened to push her down the stairs.” she accused bluntly. That was an outright lie from his mother, one he hadn’t heard before. Of course she would know there needed to be an acute threat to the safety of the public for him to be detained quickly and smoothly. “Beside that, you suffer from serious delusions: you believe you’re from the future and you even believed you were _dead._ Now I’ll tell you you’re are not, Mr. Langdon, and you do severely need our help finding the right path again. And before you deny having ever said those things, your mother also told me the cuts on your arm are caused by yourself, to ‘see if you were still invincible as you were as a ghost’. That tells me enough about whether you truly belong here.”

  


Tate turned his bandaged hand and forearm inwards, but he couldn’t hide his cuts from sister Jude’s hawk-like sight.  The thing was, that had been the truth. Not that he was delusional, but he  _had_ been a ghost, a ghost haunting a house somewhere in the future, less than two days ago. And so had his mother, but she’d been  shrewd enough to see that no one would believe them and to use this fact against him ruthlessly.  She had had him fooled.

  


“Your mother is desperate, she wants to save you from your own depraved mind. It will be wise to remind you the only true salvation is God’s, and only He can save you from the demons of your past.”

  


“There is no god, and the last person he would save is me.” Tate muttered. He was raised as a Catholic, but had never really believed ‘He’ existed. And if he did, would god help someone who’d returned from the dead? If anything, Tate’s being here was the devil’s work.

  


He was speaking to a strictly devout woman, though; for one moment, Tate was afraid Sister Jude would hit him. Or worse, would have the strong guy behind her hit him. Instead, she just put a hand on his shoulder, strangely warm and comforting, but also commanding, holding him still and staring him down along her nose. “The world can be a harsh place, but God is merciful to us all, _if_ we are willing to work hard and pray to his name.” she vowed. “I’ll forgive you this once for your disbelieve, Mr. Langdon. I might be a religious woman but I’m not strange to the world and this age, I can’t blame you for its growing secularity. I only hope you will find Him again within these walls, and He _will_ be merciful if you learn to pay for your sins, that I promise you.”

  


Tate wanted to call her out on her bullshit, but already knew it would achieve nothing but pain on his own. The only reason he hadn’t been punished already probably was his age. There was no talking with religious crazies. So he just acted as if he listened to her jumbo on God and discipline and patiently waited for the metal prison door to close with a dull clang.

  


In the next cell Sister Jude found the boy’s brother, looking uglier than a gargoyle, but Jude knew the devil was more beautiful than men. Her heart lurched for him. He clearly did not have the capabilities to know right from wrong, it seemed he couldn’t even speak. Discipline wouldn’t do a thing, the only thing they could do was offer him a good home and pray for his soul. So entirely different from his brother, whom Jude still had hopes for if they could set him straight. Beauregard Langdon would likely need to stay in Briarcliff for the rest of his life.

  


On the other hand, Dr. Arden had said he’d like to have a look at Beauregard first thing next morning. Jude didn’t trust the scientist in the least, but even she had to admit every now and then he had the most stunning results with the most difficult patients. Maybe he still cure a case like this, and actually help Beauregard make contact with the world.

  


-

  


It was only one day later that the serial murderer, ‘Bloody Face’, arrived at Briarcliff. Tate had heard the stories from the orderlies.

  


On January 16, Donna Burton, a librarian, was abducted from the Wausaukee County Library -- a short drive from the gas station where the killer worked. Her remains were found two days later...

  


Her skin had been removed.

  


So had her head.  
  
In March, Allison Rydell, a secretary, was taken outside of her home. An eye-witness had told they’d seen a figure wearing a _mask made of human skin_. Donna’s skin. Later, also Allison’s mutilated body was found; at the edge of the road in Rosdell’s Woods surrounding the town, again, without head and without skin... by an elderly couple going on a holiday. A downer for their trip that must’ve been.

  


Now the killer’s own wife had disappeared. No one knew when or where her remains would turn up again, and if he’d already had time to take off the skin. Clear was, this man had a seriously sick mind. He was demented. And he was dangerous.

  


It was for that reason that Tate was glad his brother Beau was on some session with a Dr. Arden the morning Bloody Face arrived. Tate didn’t like the idea of his vulnerable brother being in the same room with such a fucked up man, even if there were guards and orderlies constantly breathing down everybody’s neck whose sole purpose was stopping people like Walker from harming anyone. This was because Tate knew, no matter what everybody did, some people just would not be stopped. That was what they were insane for. So Tate would need to protect his brother, to be wary of this Walker as well as every other patient in this shit hole for as long as they were here. Then they would escape, he and Beau would escape as soon as the opportunity presented itself and find out what had sent them back in the time.

  


Tate sat at the side of the room, at a small table by himself. His eyes where focused on the double doors at the end, where Walker would enter. He would try to assess him, so he could be prepared for the worst if the tosser ever dared to come near Beau. When in hell, better be wary…

  


It was after about two hours when the killer was lead in. To no real surprise of Tate’s, he was a pretty boy. Strong, handsome frame, flowing dark blond locks, probably in his twenties… Kit Walker was the perfect sixties’ Rock ‘n Roll boy, he would’ve had the ladies swooning for him. It disgusted Tate. Such a perfect, thoughtless life, and yet such a depraved, selfish mind. Why murder and skin those women, who’d done nothing to him? That was no noble war, that was no protest, that was lust of a man who never had to miss anything in life. That was the epitome of what this filthy system reduced people to: consumers, predators, monsters for whom the highest achievement in life was their own, material gain.

  


He had murdered his own wife. One should never hurt the people they love. And if he married a woman he didn’t love, he was even worse a monster in Tate’s books.

  


The woman he’d come to know as the slut of the asylum darted around the killer. He had welts on his ass. Sister Jude’s handiwork, apparently, his assessment that she would be one for corporal punishment turned out to be true. The killer rejected the slut’s advances, but Tate knew that only was form. Couldn’t kill other inmates on his first day, now could he?

  


Walker walked around dazedly. He aggravated towards the gramophone, where the madding tune played on and on. It was the same weird, awful, cheery French chanson that played forever on a loop, making those who were still sane actually lose their minds – seriously, Tate had once heard somewhere that playing horridly bad music on a loop was a real form of torture in some countries. If this song wasn’t the one already used for that, Tate would warmly recommend it to the secret services. However, that wasn’t the only reason Tate hoped the killer would stop the tune: those who tried were enthusiastically snatched upon and then taken up Sister Judy’s hardest cane. It was nowhere fitting the man’s crime, of course, but Tate always liked the handsome ones getting taken down a peg. He knew it was not something to be proud of, but if Tate felt it justified, he could take real pleasure seeing those who had hurt others in pain.

  


Sadly, Walker was stopped by Grace, the same French girl who also stopped Tate when _he_ wondered if he could smash that god-damned record to pieces just two hours ago. He was no expert in reading lips, but he took a good guess she was telling him the same thing she’d told Tate: the song played while the common room was open. One of the rules of house, and rules were to be obeyed here, on pain of… well, pain.

  


Saved by the girl, Tate thought cynically, but then to his delight another inmate recognized the killer for who he was and started punching him in the head with steel knuckles. Patients gathered around, calling for a fight, and the two psychopaths rolling around the floor answered their request with zest. Just as it was getting entertaining – Walker had gotten on top and was now bashing into the other guy, Sister Jude came in with a few orderlies and a ghastly, shrill whistle that hurt Tate’s head, breaking the two up and spoiling everyone’s fun. Walker blamed the other guy, which made Tate chuckle, but still was the one taken away. For some kind of punishment, Tate was sure.

  


-

  


_Oct. 6_

_Killer free among other inmates_

_o. a. Pepper, a Pinhead_

_and Beau, a handicapped boy_

  


Lana Winters had to be careful as she penned the note – she doubted Sister Jude would be merciful on her, the nun  _was_ her abductor after all. Namely, she had come to Briarcliff not as a patient, but as a reporter  trying to get a scoop on the infamed Bloody Face killer, Kit Walker. Now that infamed killer was looking at her from the other side of the room.

  


Sister Jude had caught her snooping in her institution, and somehow had gotten her claws on a statement of her homosexuality – signed by her lover Wendy, giving her a legal allowance to keep her in the place as an inmate. The sister was determined to keep her here out of sheer spite. But Lana had her revenge already planned out, she would write down every malpractice and abuse she encountered within these walls, and once she had escaped the place, she would tear it down.  The law was with her, and there was nothing that could stop her as soon as she got out. But until then, she tried to lay low and gather as much evidence as she could.

  


She glanced again at the killer. He was playing some kind of card game with Grace, the girl who slept in the cell opposite hers. Lana didn’t know what had led to Grace being in Briarcliff, she was one of the minority here who seemed entirely sane at first glance. What Lana didn’t understand, was why Grace chose to spend time with a known women killer of all people.

  


Feeling uneasy thinking about Kit Walker, she decided to seek some diversion and properly meet the duo sitting at the table to the left of her: Beau, a grotesquely malformed, but further seemingly harmless boy and his younger brother Tate, who just like Grace and Kit Walker looked and acted like a sane, perfectly normal person at first sight. Lana almost suspected Tate was just there to support his brother – the only thing she ever saw him do was leading him, playing with him or just generally taking care of him – but she knew that wasn’t very plausible. With Beau, on the other hand, it was more than obvious something was wrong. Apart from his physical handicap, he behaved like a young child; always being engrossed by the games Tate invented or the stories he told or, more and more Lana was sad to conclude, letting his brother comfort him as he was rocking back and forth, crying his heart out.

  


C urrently, Beau was happily being read a story by his brother; they had taken one of the books from the ancient collection in the game cupboard of the  c ommon  r oom.  They sat side to side, Tate was showing Beau the pictures and the text as he read, so Lana sat down opposite the brothers drawing a slightly annoyed look from the younger boy.

  


Tate didn’t stop reading, though, and Lana listened to him telling the story of Barry the Dog and Penny the Fox with all flair and enthusiasm he could bring. Tate wasn’t a bad story teller, Lana suspected he was used telling his older brother children’s stories from when they still lived at home.  Beau hardly noticed her presence, as engaged as he was in the story, and as soon as Tate had finished and put the book aside Beau opened it again and tried to nudge it back into Tate’s hands.

  


“That was a good story.” Lana complimented amiably, “You have real talent there.”

  


Tate pushed the book away, focusing  on the reporter instead. “ What do you want? ”

  


“Just wanted to meet some friendly faces.” she told honestly, “My name is Lana Winters, if you haven’t heard, I’m a reporter. I came here to do a story on Bloody Face, but Sister Jude found me snooping in her asylum and found a way to keep me here, as a prisoner.”

  


The teen, Lana guessed he was barely old enough to be even admitted to the place, frowned warily.  “ On what charges? Even if Sister Jude keeps you here unjustly, she needs to have some charges. ”

  


O f course, Tate was right to have some suspicions, smart even.  She would have asked the same. “ I am a lesbian.  She got my lover to sign my papers. ”  Before coming here, s he wouldn’t have been so open,  but  as  Briarcliff already had  possession of her most sensitive secret she’d decided  that  telling  it to the other inmates couldn’t do her any more harm.  The teen reacted very well on the news, he pulled a painful face out of sympathy but did not appear shocked or appalled in any way. It may be because he was used to associating with people who were different from the crowd, or because he and his brother came from a very progressive family.

  


“Beau and I also don’t belong here.” he confided. “Beau is obviously handicapped, but...”

  


H e folded his arms on the table, leaning forwards conspiratorially. “Our mother put us here on false pretenses, because we got in her way.  _That_ ’s the real reason we are here. That’s why we need to get out, as soon as possible.  Beau... ”  He shot an anxious glance at his brother.

  


“What’s with him?” she asked.

  


“I guess you don’t see it, because you don’t know him, but he usually never is this pale. And he usually is _much_ more active and annoying. I try everything I can think of to cheer him up, but as soon as I stop playing with him he gets all quiet and still, and I can hear him crying at night...” Tate swallowed his his worry back. “It’s Dr. Arden, he’s doing something to him and it’s making him sick. Whenever he gets back from a session he’s worse, he’ll be curled up in a ball and it takes me hours to calm him down. He isn’t just sad anymore, he’s gotten _scared_. ”

  


T ate was all choked up, but Beau didn’t seem to notice that even though he was still sitting right by his side. He indeed was very pale, almost greyish, and he was staring away from them in a soulless way. Lana had no idea what his normal proportions were, but his shirt was unhealthily loose around his arms. On his inner elbow was a small bandage,  suggesting some kind of injection.

  


“We need to leave from this place,” Tate continued, “Beau _needs to leave_. I don’t want Dr. Arden touching  my brother ever again.” Tate shook his head as if he was in fierce denial of the very thought. “I don’t want it. He’s hurting him.”

  


“I might know a way out.”

  


Tate head shot up, shocked. Lana herself was shocked that it had slipped her lips so easily, but it was clear that whatever was happening to the handicapped boy was wrong on an entirely different level than her detainment.  If he’d die in here while she could have prevented it, she would be a monster in her own right. She would hate herself, and anyone who knew  what she’d done  would  rightly do  too.

  


“There is a tunnel that’s unguarded, it’s how I got in. But I don’t know how to get there without being seen, we’ll need something of a distraction.”

  


“We’re going with you.”

  


Lana whipped around. It was not the petite French woman that triggered that immediate alarm in her brain, but rather the man Lana had come to associate Grace with.

  


“You’re not. You heard nothing. You’re not going anywhere.”

  


“I _heard_ you know a way out, and we want in.” Grace insisted, “You know me, you know I don’t belong in here, I was tricked just as the lot of you. I want to feel the sun on my skin again, I want to live my life again, just as you do.” That was true, Grace was friendly and kind to anyone and didn’t seem like she belonged in here; Lana would love to bring her along with their escape. The person she was so opposed against was the one standing behind Grace.

  


“Not with _him...”_ She knew she sounded completely vile, but that was how she felt about Kit Walker. If she set him free he would just continue his horrendous practice, and every new body would be a blemish on her soul.

  


“I’m innocent.” he had the guts to say. “I’m not the killer you think I am.”

  


“Like hell you are.” Lana sneered back viciously.

  


“I believe him.” Grace told firmly. It saddened Lana to see her friend so gullible as to believe the man. How he had sweetened the Frenchwoman up so much was a mystery to Lana. “He’s done nothing and doesn’t deserve to be electrocuted nor to be kept here forever. We’re either both going with you or we’ll find our own way out.”

  


“Good luck with that!” Tate called out mockingly from behind her, his tears completely disappeared and his voice suddenly self-assured and cocky.

  


The orderlies were calling the evening, rounding everyone up from the common room.

  


“When Kit tells me he hasn’t killed those women I believe him.” Grace argued, “They have the wrong killer, Lana, and have stopped the investigation while the real Bloody Face is still out there. All evidence against Kit is purely circumstantial, there is no real proof.”

  


Lana wanted to respond, but the guards had gotten t o o close by now.  Grace hadn’t been out in the world for a long time, the only things she’d heard about Kit’s case came from either the staff or the murderer himself. Of course she would tend to believe her fellow inmates above the authority that abused and mistreated her. But Lana  _had_ been out in the world, and had researched the entire investigation closely.

  


There was no doubt: Kit Walker was Bloody Face.

  


-

  


“What’s your name, Miss?”

  


John had difficulty not eyeing up the gorgeous woman at his desk  _too_ conspicuously. That would only give trouble, and John didn’t  do trouble. He had a wife, three beautiful young children – going on four – a  cozy home in the outskirts of the town, he always was and had been a troublefree man.  He’d take a peek, nothing wrong with that, but he kept his paws to himself. He was just decent like that. It was his greatest virtue. But now also a great  miss .

  


“Elizabeth Mary-Ann Short.” The vowels glided smoothly as a soft, tingling melody. “I’m from Boston, but I’m supposed to be in Los Angeles. I have an audition there, you see?”

  


“An audition?” John asked curiously.

  


“I’m going to be a movie star.” she pronounced the words ‘movie star’ with the conviction of a little girl sure to have a Hollywood career as she’d grow up. It did not lend her aspirations much credibility, but she sounded sexy as hell saying it.

  


“Well, then it is an honor to have met you, Miss.” He showed her a toothy grin. “But how did you then end up sleeping on a bench in Framingham?”

  


“Well, that’s the thing officer, I’ve forgotten. One moment I was in Los Angeles, making my dreams come true, and the other I was in this cold, dreary town without my money and even without my coat! How is that possible, officer?”

  


“I couldn’t say...” he replied, scribbling bullet points in his note block. “What is the last thing you _can_ remember, where were you, what was the date?”

  


“I’m not sure, it’s all so blurry.” she complained. “But it certainly was in California. The third, fourth of August? Maybe a week later...”

  


H is pen rose from the paper. “Miss, it’s October.”

  


She frowned her perfectly groomed eyebrows. “How can that be? I can’t have missed more than a month? I’ll have missed my audition!”

  


At that point Saul came in, leaning in the door. “John, we’ve contact with the men in L.A.. We need her name and date of birth.”

  


“Elizabeth Short, November twelfth nineteen-twenty-two.”

  


That surprised John. “You’re forty-two? I’m sorry, Miss, I had estimated you a lot younger.”

  


“What are you talking about? I am twenty-four years old.”

  


“But you said you were born in twenty-two!”

  


“Yes, and now it’s forty-seven and I am twenty-four.” she claimed straight-faced.

  


“When you said it was August last you could remember, you mean August nineteen-forty-seven?”

  


“Yes, of course.”

  


This beautiful woman was obviously a madwoman. She indeed was dressed as John imagined someone from the forty’s would, but he’d assumed it just to be a matter of taste. Her exaggerated intonation too was something out of a somewhat old-fashioned Hollywood. She was from another era.

  


“John!” Saul called from the doorway again. He beckoned him to join him in the hall.

  


“What’s the report?” John asked lowly after he’d closed the door behind him, shutting the astounded woman in the questioning room.

  


“They found an Elizabeth Short from Boston born in nineteen-twenty-two in the civilian register in L.A.” Saul informed him, “Only, that can’t be this woman. Elizabeth Short was found murdered and sawed in half in a park in Los Angeles in August _nineteen-forty-seven_.”

  


John grimaced. “That’s gruesome. You think this woman took on a false identity?”

  


“The case was huge. She was nick-named “the Black Dahlia”, it remained one of the highest profile unsolved cases to this day. We also had an old paper with the article in our own archives, look at the photo’s...”

  


Saul handed the paper over to John. At the front page were two photo’s, one a portrait of Elizabeth Short as she was alive and one the mutilated body found among the bushes. To John surprise the woman on the pictures looked exactly the same as the woman at his very desk, the likeliness was uncanny.

  


“So, what do we do?”

  


John considered it for a moment. Then he looked his friend and colleague in the eye with a great smile. “What do you think? Impostor or ghost, what does it matter? The woman is homeless and confused, so we should be gentlemen and offer her a place to stay at the office.”

  


John would always be a good, decent man.

  


-

  


That one opportunity they’d all been waiting for since the talk of escape had started, came a lot sooner than anticipated. No one knew what exactly was going on, but that night all doors in all cell blocks started to rattle – creating a sound as if a herd of a thousand horses galloped through the hall, as if an army of an era past stormed along just at the other side of the door. The light turned a hellish red and then – in perfect synchrony – all doors flew open.

  


Uncertain, Lana stepped out, seeing the other inmates hovering just as confused near their doors. Grace too had woken up and peered through the eerily red hall.

  


“What’s going on?” Lana asked her lowly.

  


“I don’t know, power failure? Come on, this is our chance!” Grace tugged her along as they went hastily to the men’s residence. They hadn’t agreed yet on whether to take Kit with them, but Lana was to astounded to bicker. There was no time now, and maybe they wouldn’t find Kit, maybe they would just find Tate and Beau and leave before the killer was there.

  


As they hurried through the corridors, the opportunity they had became more and more clear. The guards were too busy with the panicking crazies, sister Jude and sister Mary-Eunice were no where to be seen, everywhere was chaos. Lana began to hope, to actually hope, their freedom might finally be real. Grace as well, suddenly stepped much lighter and got almost giddy with the prospect of leaving the place. Soon they found Tate and Beau, the younger boy wide-eyed and tense, roughly pulling his brother along with him.

  


“We’re escaping, right?” He sounded short of breath, his adrenaline choking him. The light made his dark eyes glow up red, he was almost crazed with despair, but there was a cheerful spark of hope and anticipation there as well. Lana was glad having met them before she had left and being able to save Beau from whatever was going on in Dr. Arden’s lab.

  


“Yes, follow me.” Lana turned to leave, to where she knew the tunnel to be. She didn’t want to linger. The quicker they got away from the men’s cell block, the smaller the possibility Kit Walker had spotted them.

  


In no time they reached the lowest floor, running to the end of a corridor just past some closets and storage rooms. That hall seemed to perpetually smell like strong chemical cleaning products. “It’s just through that door.” Lana told the others.

  


“Grace!”

  


The entire group whipped around, looking at Kit Walker standing just behind them. He must’ve followed them all the way here, why else would he suddenly appear at this floor? But why had he decided to show himself now?

  


Grace didn’t have such contemplations. “Come on, Lana knows a way out –”

  


“No!” Lana interrupted Grace. “He can’t come with us.” She turned sneeringly to Kit. “Get away from us!”

  


“Lana, please, I know what everyone thinks of me but I _swear_ : am not crazy, I didn’t kill those women!” He sounded as Lana had expected him to sound, like an innocent, naive young man who still believed in his dreams and ideals. That must’ve been what Grace had fallen for, but Lana saw it for what it was: a mask, not of human skin but one of innocence, created by a psychopath and a master manipulator. A monster.

  


In his attempt to sway her he’d taken a step forwards, she took one back to maintain distance. “I will not let you. You’re a _disgusting_ excuse for a human being, you can get the electric chair for all I –”

  


“Lana! It doesn’t matter if he escapes or not, we need to _go_.” Tate pressed frantically. He stared at her like a frightened little boy. Beau hung weakly on Tate’s shoulder, he had practically been carrying his brother all the way down here.

  


“He’ll follow us!” Lana tried to argue, but Tate would have none of it and interrupted her again.

  


“ _Now_!”

  


Grace agreed. “We’ll find the rest of the way ourselves. Let’s go!”

  


Tate, Grace and Kit all ran past her, to the white double doors she had shown. Behind that would be the unguarded storage room for the chute cars, and there the started the tunnel. Kit couldn’t leave. Kit couldn’t escape! He’d murder and torture people!

  


“HELP!” Three faces turned to her, wide-eyed, not believing what she was doing. “HELP, THE KILLER IS ESCAPING!!!”

  


Suddenly guards poured in from all corners, crannies and corridors, tackling the four prisoners. Kit was cudgeled down aggressively. Grace was pushed up the wall, catching Lana’s eyes. She got the hard, betrayed glare she deserved. But the most unsettling was Tate. Beau fell from his shoulder as he furiously tried to struggle free. But Tate wasn’t just trying to get out of the jumble, he tried to get to _her_ , he was staring at her with murderous hatred – like he wanted nothing more at that moment than to rip the limps from her body with his bare hands.

  


He was quickly thrown down to the ground, two guards diving after him to keep him in control, however, nothing stopped him from letting out a primal, blood-curdling scream that even seemed to startle the guards. Tate too, was cudgeled into unconsciousness.

  


-


	2. The Unbelievable

Episode 2

 

-

 

Lana was in the common room. She’d just witnessed Kit receiving forty lashes with a cane by sister Jude; he’d sacrificed himself for the others. He’d said he’d understood. That he’d have done the same in her place. Grace and Tate, however, weren’t as forgiving. Grace had looked at her with implacable betrayal – it was clear she laid the blame solely on Lana. Tate’s stare however was more calm, ascertained, final. As if he hadn’t had a good picture of her until that moment, and now he had grasped her completely. As if he’d always expected that side of her.

 

They now were somewhere in solitary confinement, but all too soon she would see them again. She didn’t know who she was more afraid of now, the proven killer or the two people that were rightfully angry at her.

 

A tall, muscled inmate walked up to her, bringing her out of her musings. Lana hadn’t seen him before, so she guessed he was new. All in all, he was quite good-looking, but he also cut a pretty imposing form. She hoped he hadn’t anything malevolent in mind.

 

“Hello. You’re the press woman, right? Lana Winters?”

 

“Yes, that’s me.” she answered, as he came and sat down beside her.

 

He offered his hand, Lana shook it. “Hi, my name is Patrick. I heard you stopped an escape attempt yesterday.”

 

She stiffened. He made it sound as if she was some sort of snitch, of the worst kind. “I stopped a serial killer from escaping.” she clarified curtly. That was the only reason she’d yelled. If it wasn’t for Kit Walker, she’d have gladly led Grace, Tate and Beau to freedom.

 

Patrick gave her a sour smile in return. “That you did.” She couldn’t totally figure out if that was meant sarcastically or not. It was as if he was keeping some information back from her, as if he knew something she had yet to unveil.

 

He moved his body so that he faced her more fully and leaned towards her, lowering his tone. “I want to tell you something, Miss Winters, something very important. It is the reason why I am here, but it’s far larger than that. What I have experienced… it’s impossible, and I wouldn’t have believed it if I’d told myself, but it’s all true...”

 

Lana frowned warily. “So you want me to publish a story about it? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re in a mental ward, I’m in no position to publish anything.”

 

“You’re the only normal person around here.” Patrick insisted, “I just need a sane person believing me, _listening_ to me, because a lot of people may be in danger and most of those may be in this ward.”

 

Lana conceded. “Alright, I’ll listen, but if it’s really such an unbelievable story, I don’t know if I’ll be able to believe you.”

 

“Listening is enough for now.” he decided, “Soon enough you’ll start to believe me anyway.”

 

He began telling his story. “You see, there are two things that I previously had deemed as fantasy, but are both very much real. The first is time-traveling. But the fact is, I’ve been born in 1976, twelve years from now, and yet here I am.” Lana couldn’t help being a bit skeptic over his claim, seeing as they were indeed in a mad house, but still listened attentively because she had promised to and it wouldn’t hurt to let him talk.

 

“In 2008, I moved in an old, large, Victorian style mansion in Los Angeles with my boyfriend – being gay is much more accepted in the future – it was very cheap for its value but a bit run-down, so we planned to restore and upgrade the house and sell it again for a higher price, making money out of it. My boyfriend Chad and I were very happy together, we even planned to adopt children and build a live, but as it often goes, everything went down from that point.”

 

“We fell out of love – or actually, _I_ fell out of love, I believed Chad always loved me and still does, that’s what caused all our arguments. I just began finding him more and more agitating – he was always such a queen – and I’m still not sure why that happened so suddenly, but nowadays I tend to think it was because of the house. Because the house we had bought turned out to be widely known as ‘the Murder House’ and be riddled with spirits of the death.”

 

“You’re telling me a ghost story in a mental institution and hope me to take you seriously?” Lana asked a bit incredulously. Patrick didn’t take offense, he just smirked. He knew no one would believe him at first, but if Lana heard him out, she would be able to recognize the truth when it presented itself.

 

“For the longest time we had no idea of the existence of the ghosts, until Halloween 2010. Chad and I were arguing again, over _pumpkin cutting_ , until I went away for a moment to put on a costume. When I returned in the kitchen, I found Chad lying dead, at the feet of some strange man wearing the black, rubber, all body covering sex suit Chad had bought. I tried to attack the man, but he turned out to be inhumanely strong; he threw me against the wall and murdered me with a fire poker. That’s when I discovered that if one dies at the Murder House, one is cursed to haunt its premises as a ghost, forever.”

 

“Wait, you’re saying you _became_ a ghost?” Lana inquired in disbelieve.

 

Patrick’s smile grew wider, but the dark undertone was still there. “Yes. Both Chad and I became ghosts, and we discovered that dozens of other ghosts already inhabited the place, everyone since the very first owners! As it turned out, our murderer was also a ghost, an insane, psychopathic teenager with parental issues. It was quite pathetic, really.”

 

“But that was what we were, ghosts, until some years later, I believe it was sometime in the spring around 2015. One second, I was haunting the house, arguing with Chad as I’d done forever, the next, I was outside on the street of some unknown city just at dawn, together with every other ghost inhabiting the house. We’d time-traveled, been transported to another place, and maybe the weirdest of all, every one of us suddenly was alive again.”

 

“Chad and I winged it out for a while together, doing a reasonably good job of blending in. But then, Chad started behaving oddly, as if he still was a ghost haunting the house, and he started arguing with me about being dead and our house – he acted as if we were still there – and most riskily, about our relationship, in public, revealing we were gay. Gay and crazy. People called the police, Chad was completely detached from his surroundings, going on like a madman, and when they arrived they arrested us both but Chad disappeared. I think he’d actually reverted back to being a ghost again, enabling him to do so. I’m still human, up until now, so they did catch me and send me to this place. That’s how I ended up here.”

 

-

 

Another storm was raging outside, ten times worse than the one in which Tate and Beau arrived in Briarcliff. To calm the inmates, Sister Jude had arranged for a movie to play in the common room, _The Sign of the Cross_.

 

It was there, in the dimly lit common room, after the introduction of the picture by a seemingly drunk Sister Jude (an occurrence which caused many whispers among residents and staff alike), that Dr. Thredson brought her the news of Wendy. Dr. Thredson was a specialist psychiatrist who was brought in to find out if Walker was fit to stand trial – which meant he was not under Sister Jude’s jurisdiction. He was not part of their staff and in his occupation did not believe in their methods of prayer and punishment. He found the practices in Briarcliff barbaric. That was why, one day, Lana had dared ask him to smuggle out a letter she’d written to Wendy, and to her slight surprise and great relieve, he’d accepted. He thought her incarceration unfair and wanted to help her. It was thus he became her one link with the outside world, and her greatest hope in this godless place.

 

When he told her what had happened, it came totally unexpected. Wendy had disappeared before he could hand over her letter. The door was unlocked, he found blood on the floor, signs of a struggle… just like the other disappearances. Just like the other victims of Bloody Face. Kit Walker was already detained, but according to his psychatrist, according to Dr. Thredson, it might very well be Kit Walker had told everyone the truth. That Kit was _not_ the culprit of those awful murders, and the real maniac still ran around free.

 

She saw Kit, Grace, Tate and Shelley, the nymphomaniac, sneak off. They were escaping again. This was her chance to go with them, set things right and write the story that would end Briarcliff.

 

“It's really not appropriate for me to be seeing this.” she told Dr. Thredson, “Considering my condition. Sister Jude will understand.”

 

-

 

T hey were not happy to see her again. Grace shoved her angrily against the wall,  afraid she would snitch them out again,  but unexpectedly Kit spoke up for her, convincing the others to just let her join.  Shelley  was quiet on the matter,  she just wanted to get out and didn’t care who did and did not come along  and Tate just looked morose . Beau wasn’t there, he’d been missing for more than a day and a half. Lana felt for Tate, if he’d agreed to escape without Beau, he must’ve figured out by himself his brother was most likely dead.

 

T he escape went smoothly for the largest part, they just crossed one guard on their way to the tunnel they  all had been waiting in. Shelley had offered to distract him, asking them to wait for her, and if she didn’t make it out, she asked Lana to not forget her when she wrote the story that would ‘blow the doors off of this place’.  But it had taken too long already, so they decided get on and ran to the exit.

 

They made it out. The downpour washed their faces and soaked their clothes within a second, but that didn’t matter, they were free so they spread their arms and welcomed the rain, dancing around in happiness.

 

Tate was the one to urge them on quickly, they weren’t save from being found yet and really, they had no cause for celebration when they’d lost Beau and Shelley along the way.  This sobered everyone up and they ran along, between the tall, ominous trees.

 

-

 

It was not going well with Sister Jude. Against the by herself strictly upheld protocol, someone had left a full carafe of commune wine in her office at a moment she had been at her weakest. She’d been seeing things lately. Impossible things. In a long closed past, Sister Jude had been a trollop, a bar singer and an alcoholic. That was, until a night when she’d been driving home in her car, far past the speed limit and far too drunk. She had never seen the little girl crossing the street, not until it was to late.

 

It had been the reason for her to make a hundred-eighty degrees turn and become a nun, pious and devoted to the Lord. She’d been repenting for her sins, but the last few days she’d been dreaming about the little girl again, seeing small, toxic reminders of her greatest regret anywhere she looked. It was almost as if the girl’s ghost had been haunting her.

 

When she’d been drinking the wine, and was well on her way to total collapse, a man had appeared to her eyes, of the kind she would’ve called a Nancy in her younger years, gay as a daffodil. He’d taken some of the wine too, they’d talked, he couldn’t shut up over his house, and his boyfriend. She remembered he had brought his own glass with him, twirling the wine around and around as they chatted.

 

Then she’d seen an alien in the hallway, then she’d fallen asleep. Later, the whole thing felt like a dream to her.

 

-

 

Sprinting through the woods, Kit stepped on something. It took him a second to realize it was a fragment of a human skull.

 

He yelled out loudly and sprang away, Grace screamed. A few meters away there was a body, shredded apart, missing organs and limbs of which some were found on the surrounding forest floor. Much of the flesh was gone from the bones, as if wild animals had made the carcass their meal, but even in their botched state the hunchback and deformed skull were unmistakable.

 

“No…” A long, drawn out, tortured moan sounded like a ghost’s wailing through the rain. Tate stumbled forward, to the mangled corpse of his brother. “No… No – no – no. Why him? Why is it always him?”

 

Something was moving through the bushes. It was munching on another corpse, but looked straight at them.

 

“Tate!” Kit hissed lowly, not wanting to spring the humanoid creature chewing on a biceps. Tate was unresponsive, stepping scarily close to his brother’s carcass and the creature in the bush. Kit grasped his upper arm, stopping him from going any further. “Tate, we have to leave, now! Whatever did that is sitting right there. We have to run!”

 

Tate turned around aggressively, yanking his arm free. “You only think about your own well-being, don’t you?” he sneered viciously, a dark look taking over his dark eyes. “You’re probably used to the sight, aren’t you!?” he shoved Kit roughly on the ground, surprisingly strong in his anger. A hoarse rattling sounded from the cannibalistic monster, but Tate shouted right over it. “Having killed and skinned all those woman, _your own wife_. You don’t know about love at all!”

 

Tate still believed he was Bloody Face. But that didn’t matter right now, even if Kit had been the murderer, the greatest danger right now was right behind Tate. “Tate, the creature is behind you! You need to run, _now_!”

 

It hissed and jumped forward. Kit scrambled up, sprinting away, urging Grace and Lana too to run.

 

“You!”

 

Kit had no idea what Tate was going on about, but he honestly didn’t care. He went as fast as his feet could carry him, away from the creature – creatures! There were more of them! Grace and Lana ran in front of him, Tate beside him. They were nearing the asylum, creating distance from the creatures, but Kit didn’t dare stop.

 

Tate was faster than the other three, closing in on the women, but then, to everyone’s shock, he jumped in the air and tackled Lana around the middle.

 

“What the _hell_ , Tate!” Kit turned around furiously, adrenaline high from the run.

 

Lana frantically tried to get out from under the boy, but he knocked her flat to the ground with a punch in the face. “You killed Beau! It’s your fault he’s dead!” he screamed to her, his face just above hers.

 

“Tate, stop it!” Grace screamed. The monsters were closing in.

 

“You’re afraid of those things following us, aren’t you?” he yelled mockingly in Lana’s face, straggling her and keeping her wrists down with a strong grip, to keep her from wrestling away. “But it’s your fault they got to Beau, because _you_ called _the alarm_ on us! Now you’ll pay. You’ll pay for what you did to Beau!”

 

Kit was torn between tearing Tate off Lana and keeping away from the creatures. It seemed that Tate was so overwrought by Beau’s fate he either didn’t realize the danger they were all in, or simply didn’t care.

 

“Tate!” he hissed to the crazed teen, “There is no time for this now! It’s terrible what happened to Beau, but those creatures are going to eat us!”

 

Then Tate _laughed_. Tate laughed as if he genuinely found that idea funny. “You hear that, Lana? Kit thinks they’re going eat us!” he exclaimed gleefully, “I think so too. They’d love to take a bite of you.” As if to illustrate his point, he bit playfully into Lana’s neck.

 

Disturbed by the action, Kit took a step back. Lana’s eyes widened and she went very, very still, as if she’d figured something out. “No, Tate. I cared for Beau. I never wanted this to happen, and you know that! I just didn’t want Kit to escape. You can’t do this to me! That would be murder. You don’t want to be a murderer, Tate!”

 

Then the realization sunk in, over Kit’s shoulders across his back into his gut, cold like a bucket of ice-water. Tate _wanted_ the foul creatures to come, and to feed them Lana. Because he was crazy. When he’d discovered his brother’s gruesome death, Tate had snapped, and had turned into a total maniac belonging to the place they’d just come from.

 

Around them they heard the rasping breathing of the approaching creatures. Tate cackled again and called out loudly into the woods. “Come here little pests! Don’t be shy! It’s dinner time!” Kit made his decision, and sprinted back to get the mad teen off of Lana.

 

Just before he could touch him a man appeared in the storm, seemingly from nowhere, and yanked Tate roughly off the reporter onto the ground. Tate jumped back to his feet immediately, launching himself at the newcomer. It was the newest resident of Briarcliff, the tall, blond man called Patrick.

 

Lana stumbled away from the scuffle, falling into Kit’s arms and hauling herself up on him. Being larger and older, Patrick seemed to have the upper hand over Tate, but Tate fought like a beast.

 

Patrick caught Kit staring, as he hit Tate twice square in the mouth and the younger boy fell to the forest floor. He shouted at him to go, together with Grace and Lana, who pulled him back to the chute.

 

They fled from the creatures, leaving Patrick and Tate behind in the woods, back through the tunnel and into the asylum where they sneaked back into the common room. To all their surprise, the movie was still running and they hadn’t even been missed.

 

They sat down, dripping wet, wondering what would happen to Patrick and Tate, and what had happened with Shelley when she was distracting the guard. Then suddenly, Grace gripped Kit’s hand, staring to the other side of the room.

 

There sat Tate and Patrick. Dry and clean, as if they’d never even been away. It was impossible for them to have sneaked past them, they’d come there as quickly as they could and no one had entered the room after them. So how could they be there?

 


	3. The Unfettered

Episode 3

 

-

 

The night had fallen, the storm was waning; now a mere drizzle that trickled down the skin and chilled the air. With the clouds still hiding the moon from sight, it was a particularly dark night; in the halls of Briarcliff it was so black one could barely distinguish their own hands. But apart from a few guards, no one was in the halls at that moment, all of the residents were locked in their rooms – cells – trying to catch some sleep.

 

He’d never seen the stately, green tiled halls during the night before. It was quite a magnificent feeling, walking through them, almost dreamlike – even as a child, being out at night always had had that calming, wondrous effect on him. He’d never been afraid of the dark. He hid in shadows, from the harsh reality of the day, from the stupid, mindless going-ons of most people, who now were asleep. The night was _his_ realm. It gave him freedom to go unseen and unheard in darkness.

 

As he walked, he laid his fingers against the tiles, they were cold this touch. With each step his felt their cool smooth surface be interrupted by the sharp scratchiness of the seams. He found the sensation pleasant. When he touched the bronze handle of the door, though, it was almost like touching ice, and he realized his environment really was much colder than usual; but was it because they had turned down the boiler at night, or was it his own presence that chilled the air?

 

Noticing the swing door opening and falling closed, a guard looked up and shone his flashlight through the tall hallway on his left. He didn’t see him. They never saw him.

 

He found himself in front of a thick, metal door, in what he believed to be the women’s ward. He hadn’t known where he was going when he had set out, but it was no wonder his feet had led him here. He still had unfinished business.

 

He glided through the door, as it became dry ice to his skin, but the cold didn’t bother him. It did wake Lana.

 

He just regarded her face as she blinked blearily. He still remembered, how she had screamed bloody murder as they were nearly free. How the guards had come down on them like wolves tearing down their prey; they’d pulled Beau off his shoulder. Beau had been gone, once Tate returned to the common room from solitary confinement. He was already with Dr. Arden. The next time he saw his brother, his carcass was already a hollow husk, his limbs were missing, his skull was caved in and his face was ripped of.

 

Lana froze as she saw Tate. He smiled and put a finger to his lips. He wanted to hear no sound from her. He wanted to hear her cursed scream never again.

 

Lana didn’t notice how at the other side of her bed Patrick was standing. He’d been there the whole time, like a guardian angle – Tate would’ve thought he was in love with her if he didn’t know better. But it wasn’t for Lana herself that Patrick had been here, he had known that Tate would come here tonight. Unseen by the woman between them, Patrick shook his head. There would be no revenge tonight. Patrick would make sure of that.

 

Tate slunk back into the hallway, dropping down two floors through the ceiling. In the blink of an eye, he was in Dr. Arden’s darkened, unoccupied lab. Odd, how the cold crept up, and one of the lamps started flickering in his presence. Those kind of effects only happened when he intended them to back in the house.

 

He caressed the set of scalpels neatly ordered on a side table, their razor sharp, polished surface glistening alternatively in the dim moonlight coming from the large windows high up the walls, and the harsh, clinical white light of the lamp. There was a whole cupboard filled with brains in jars, he admired them floating in thick liquid. There were vials and bottles with names on them he didn’t understand, microscopes, gas burners, all types of glass instruments and a set of what he recognized from Charles’ lab as preserved organic tissue samples.

 

He wondered which ones had been used on his brother. Most likely, he would never know unless he got Arden to talk.

 

In the middle of the room was a great operation chair, with strong leather strappings for the wrists and ankles. Tate dolefully imagined Beau being held down by them, laying on the white cloth. He would’ve looked up fearfully, making desperate attempts to break through his bounds. He wouldn’t have fit properly. A fresh twinge of sorrow overtook Tate’s heart, springing tears in his eyes but also making his lip curl and his shoulders tense in sudden rage. Dr. Arden would pay for this. Tate would strap him down on this chair and do exactly to him as he did to Beau.

 

He turned around, blinking his tears away and calming his breath. There was a living human being just outside of the lab, it had been there the whole time, in a small, steel room behind that thick, heavily locked, unbreakable door.

 

After a few minutes, he entered the enclosure. It was the asylum slut, Shelley, but she looked worse than Beau had ever looked: she was covered in large, open boils, deforming her features, her breathing was difficult and rasping and her legs were amputated from halfway the thighs, creating two disgusting-looking, moving stumps.

 

She looked straight at him, and weakly reached out an arm. “Help… me.” she could not bring out more than a whisper, but it was enough for Tate to understand. He came closer, and sat down on his thighs. Her eyes were blood red and wide open.

 

“What do you want me to do?” Tate asked in a low voice.

 

“K-kill… me...”

 

Tate had disliked Shelley for her randiness, her type of woman was especially shallow, they always went for the jocks and amplified the facets of this society Tate most loathed… in a way, Shelley was what his mother had been, a home-breaker, only far better looking with an entirely different (and much less nauseating) style. But no one deserved to be reduced to this. Again, his anger at Dr. Arden spiked, but he put it away in a dark corner of his heart; to come out later when he needed it.

 

Tate knew the lure of death, he knew it all to well. So often, it seemed so much better to just hasten the inevitable instead of eternally struggling on just to survive, to belong. Why clung people to life so much, even if they knew better. Even if they knew death would bring peace and justice.

 

But he’d been wrong about death before. In his saner moments, he knew life was usually the most precious thing people had, as they had only one of it and they needed it to enjoy everything else. He knew it was for that reason that the overlarge majority wanted to keep it, and that he should respect that wish _even_ if he thought he knew what was best. Good people just didn’t kill people. Of course he knew that, rationally, and Violet had reawaken that wisdom in him even after he was dead, but he himself often just didn’t feel that way. And that so often confused him, his anger and apathy getting the better of him, letting him make so many mistakes. He wanted to be a good person, he really did, but the bad thoughts always were there, always making him a bad person, and if he _was_ a bad person, shouldn’t he just be honest and act as he felt? If he was a bad person per definition, why should he bother trying to change?

 

But Shelley’s case was different. Tate had believed before that death would be a mercy to the person he granted it to, but Shelley never would have the chance at a normal life again, her life would truly only exist of further suffering at the hands of Dr. Arden. That was why she _asked_ Tate to kill her. He didn’t know if she even realized it was him, but he would be grateful to grant her her wish.

 

He appeared in the lab, taking one of the sharpest scalpels in the rack, and reappeared behind Shelley. Death came so quick, she didn’t even see it coming.

 

-

 

Lana glanced at Tate putting a plate filled with dough clumps into the oven. She’d seen him last night. It must’ve been a dream, it must have been, but she still remembered it with such clarity that she could only have been wide awake.

 

Tate had been there, in her closed cell, and disappeared again in the shadows. It had happened before: the first night after the storm, and two or three times more. Usually it was the same, he’d be looming over her as she woke up, smile sinisterly and hush her or just stare at her, and then disappear again as if he’d never been there. Last night however, he’d stayed on for what seemed more than an hour, leaning his back against her cell door. Patrick had then too appeared, by her side, staring at Tate as if protecting her. Patrick told her to go back to sleep, but she only managed to when Tate had disappeared from her sight. She just didn’t know what to make of it, it must’ve been a dream, but apart from the fact it must have been, all other evidence pointed out that it was indeed all very real.

 

Then there was the way he and Patrick reappeared in the common room during the night of the storm, or how Patrick had so suddenly appeared in the rain at all. That too, was impossible to truly have happened, but _that_ Kit and Grace saw too. They couldn’t have had all the same hallucination at once, so Tate and Patrick must have used some trick, to quickly move around the asylum unnoticed. That in itself was scary as hell, because as she didn’t know how they’d done it, she didn’t know if Tate could use that same trick to get to her.

 

Because one thing that _certainly_ was no dream, was Tate’s attack during the storm. He’d wanted to throw her for the monsters in the woods. He was insane and believed her responsible for his brother’s terrible demise. Which she was, indirectly, but he knew she had never wanted that to happen to Beau, she’d never seen any of it coming.

 

The week following their second escape attempt, the buzz that seemed to have overtaken Briarcliff calmed down a bit. Shelley had never been seen again by the asylum’s population, which made Lana cautiously happy for her, as Kit and Grace had convinced her that meant she had made it out. Dr. Arden, as far as Lana saw the man in between his meetings and sessions in his quarters or in his lab, seemed nervous for some reason, she caught some heated words between him and Sister Jude as she passed Sister Jude’s office one time. Kit didn’t like to talk about his meetings with Dr. Arden, but did share with her and Grace that he’d accused him of sneaking into his lab and sabotaging his projects, in addition to spying on him for the DDR. That all was madness, of course, but one thing was clear: something unusual had happened in Dr. Arden’s lab and it was bothering him a lot.

 

Then there was Lana’s constant worries over Wendy. Chances were, she either was already dead or Dr. Thredson had somehow been mistaken and she had never been in danger in the first place, but Lana feared the former. Still, she was as determined as ever to get out, to write her story, to get revenge on Sister Jude, to expose every foul thing happening between these walls, to tell the truth about all those numerous beautiful souls that were cast out by society, captivated and treated like dogs, to track down the real Bloody Face and find out what happened to Wendy and just, to be a _person_ again. Dr. Thredson had helped her with that: she’d tried conversion therapy with him so Sister Jude would have no legal ground anymore to hold her here, and as that failed, he’d offered to her to simply smuggle her out.

 

What she didn’t entirely understand was why he didn’t make a stand for Kit if he believed him not to be the murderer. He’d said confirming Kit’s insanity was the best thing he could for him, as it would keep him from the electric chair, but then he would still be locked up in this place, he would still have those horrible deeds staining his name and the real murderer would still be free. Maybe Dr. Thredson meant to help her find and expose the real Bloody Face once he got her out of here, dissolving Kit from his charges.

 

Kit Walker hadn’t been doing well. He’d started to believe in the accusations himself, reasoning that if he was crazy enough to make up those aliens, he might have been crazy enough to commit those murders without realizing he was the culprit. But as the culprit was still free, Lana didn’t think that could be true, and she had never seen actual crazy behavior from Kit in the weeks she had known him. That hadn’t convinced Kit however, so Lana hoped Grace would have more success with him.

 

Tate had spotted her and was studying her again in that typical, menacing way. Or maybe he was just looking at her, and her fear made his dark eyes seem like endless pits of ruthless hatred. After all, she might not be a lunatic, but she knew her own mind no better than the others. Fear could color her perspective, past weeks’ events had established that firmly now.

 

A nun scolded him for loitering, and he turned his gaze away. Lana silently thanked her.

 

“So do you believe me now?” Her heart jumped in her throat as she heard Patrick’s low voice speak from just above her head. She hadn’t expected she would still be careless enough to let someone sneak up on her – but Patrick must have been silent as a shadow, she hadn’t noticed a thing.

 

She regathered her wits rather quickly. “Your ghost story?”

 

“You were staring at Tate. I know you can recall seeing him last night, you saw both of us.”

 

Previously he had just startled her. Now he made her back stiffen, her throat constrict and her stomach turn into a gnawing pit.

 

“What are you talking about?” It couldn’t be the dreams, could it? The dreams couldn’t be true.

 

“You were wide awake for almost forty-five minutes, you couldn’t have still been drowsy. You might remember waking up before too, he’s been into your room five times now.”

 

“Five times.” her tongue felt like sandpaper as she repeated the words. Tate was out of sight, but his presence still hung around. “He’s been into my bolted cell five times last week, watching me sleep? And you know about it?” There were traces of a laugh in her voice, but Lana found the suggestion nowhere near funny.

 

“I was there too. Tate and I, we’re both turning back into ghosts again. I’m watching over you every night to make sure _he_ doesn’t do anything awful.”

 

“So Tate is a ghost too?”

 

Patrick was silent for a few seconds, and Lana almost thought he would deny it; of course Tate was no ghost. Maybe this place was making her lose her mind already, just as it had made Kit believe he was mad.

 

“He’s the crazy dead teenager who killed me by shoving a fire-poker up my ass.” he said, solemn as the grave. The directness would have been shocking to most people, but Lana had never been easy to rattle. She instead was trying to figure out what to believe, how much of this was truth and how much fantasy. Patrick’s eyes bored into her, trying to convey something of their urgency onto her. “I long thought it was a hate-crime, but it wasn’t. It was because I cheated on Chad, or so he said, but that doesn’t explain why he killed Chad as well. It actually was because he is crazy. Tate was already insane in life, and death reduced him to nothing but an evil spirit who haunted the house Chad and I lived in until he killed us both.”

 

Lana had difficulty ignoring that what Patrick said made sense. All logic and scientific theory defied Patrick’s story, hell, he was institutionalized, but the things Lana had seen and heard here could not be _explained_ by scientific theory. This, at least, made everything fall into place. Now she’d created the image in her head, she could easily imagine Tate as an evil spirit, his ghostly howl after their first escape attempt still echoing in her ears. But it just _could_ not be true, because ghosts did not exist.

 

But if Patrick and Tate weren’t actually ghosts, how had Patrick known what she had dreamed of last night? How had he known she’d seen Tate before, many times this last week, in dreams so vivid she almost believed she had been wide awake?

 

“There is someone you should meet, maybe it will help if you hear it from a different source. I only caught a glimpse of her this morning, but she’s another ghost of the house, she will confirm my story.”

 

“Alright.” Lana agreed, willing to see if what Patrick said was actually true. “Who is this woman?”

 

“Nora Montgomery.”

 

-

 

Nora Montgomery was a beautiful woman, her curling blond hair in a tight knot behind her neck, her dainty white hands folded in her lap and her posture straight and elegant as that of a ballerina. She wore her asylum frock as if it were a silken evening gown created by her personal tailor, as she stared out of the stained window, her mind wandering to better times.

 

Kit and Grace were with them too, Lana had relayed everything to the pair and asked them to come with her so that three minds could hear the words, so she could be sure she wasn’t hallucinating everything. They seemed to accept her story a lot more easily than she herself had – she hadn’t accepted it yet – but maybe that was because they had already seen crazier things.

 

“Mrs. Montgomery?” Patrick asked, “Can we talk to you for a moment?”

 

She looked up at the four of them and frowned. “How do you know my name? I cannot recall us being acquainted.”

 

“I was one of the ghosts in the house. I’m not sure we’ve ever really spoken before, but me and Chad were murdered by Tate in 2010, on Halloween night.”

 

She nodded her head, as if that made perfect sense. “Ah, yes, you were the gay couple that lived there. Forgive me for my forgetfulness, my memories of much of my time are all a bit vague due to the deplorable state I was in. But I guess you already know all about that.”

 

Patrick smiled wryly. “I do.”

 

She motioned them to sit down. “It would be a bit much to ask to make yourselves comfortable, but we are all equals here, we should all sit together. It would do no good to crane my neck.”

 

“Now, Patrick,” she said as they had all taken a seat, “Please, introduce me to your companions here, I don’t expect much anymore in terms of gentility or decorum but not to be introduced is downright rude in my opinion, in any day and age.”

 

Kit was quick to extend his hand. “Kit Walker, from a town nearby this place. It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

 

Mrs. Montgomery did not shake the proffered limb, but politely nodded her head instead. “The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Walker.”

 

Grace and Lana too, friendlily gave their names, before Mrs. Montgomery asked Patrick if they ‘knew of the house’. Patrick confirmed they did.

 

“Good, then we can be frank with each other. My name is Nora Montgomery, and me and my husband, Charles, were the first people to take residence in the house. He had it built for me, the fixtures in the windows were the color of my eyes, beautiful blue butterflies.” For a moment, she seemed to trail off and her eyes found the window again. Held against the daylight, the irises indeed glowed up a deep, dark blue. She seemed very lost, the song of _Dominique_ in shrill disconcert with her well-intoned, aristocratic manner of speaking.

 

She snapped out of it, turning to Patrick. “Chad visited in me in my room this morning. He never turned back into a human after he became a ghost again, he is the only one so far I’ve met who had that.”

 

“Is he here now?” Patrick asked, with possibly a hint of guilt.

 

“I assume. He regrets getting you into this place, and will haunt it until you are free as well. I believe he really _is_ in love with you, which is more than I could ever say for me and Charles.” she lamented, studying the object of Chad’s affection with puzzled eyes, “Even though I do not understand what use there is for a man to fall in love with another man, especially if he is unfaithful. It is not like you can marry.”

 

This made Patrick actually laugh. “We could in 2008.” Lana looked at him in surprise, Nora’s mouth fell open. “We actually planned to, but gay marriage was suddenly halted by an amendment in that same year in November, so we were forced to postpone. It was around the same time we moved in.”

 

Nora was stunned, processing the changes in society and policy that had taken place in a century. Grace instead inquired, “What happened since then that you cheated on him?”

 

Patrick shrugged. “Things became more and more tedious, and I felt trapped. I guess it might have been the house, there have been too many relationships gone awry inside those walls for it to be natural.”

 

Nora thought on that, and then sighed. “It has been weird, being alive again after so many years. It has been even weirder to temporarily turn back to my old form. I have been working in a factory before I arrived here, just making ends meet. Until yesterday evening, during my shift, I felt the pain of losing Thaddeus all over again. I remember it like a dream, it feels unreal to me. I wandered the work hall looking for my baby, the machines frightened and confused me, I didn’t know where I was and I thought I should still have been in my house, with Thaddeus, but I was there instead. This morning a group of officers stood in front of my door, to take me away to a mental institution. I must have disturbed the security guards.”

 

“Chad told me he frequently has similar experiences. Alive, he got obsessed with the house, and now he constantly alters between a state of total clarity and moments he isn’t even aware this isn’t the house anymore, when he relives the last few days before our murder. He said he feels more insane now than he ever did after he died the first time.”

 

“Hayden was the one who had been with me for most of our time in this age, we first worked in that factory together. She told me that what I initially thought was a very long and very nasty nightmare was actually reality, that we’d all become undead after what Charles had done. She always was very quick in figuring out what was going on, and after the first time she had been temporarily a ghost again she knew what that would mean for her. She loathed what she had become after she had died, and she feared she would be that same crazed, desperate ghost girl forever if she didn’t end herself while she still could. She bit a bullet this Thursday. I’m not sure if I shouldn’t have done the same.”

 

“No.” A male voice sounded from behind her, and Lana’s hairs immediately stood on end. “You shouldn’t kill yourself, Nora. You have already been dead for far too long, you deserve to live.”

 

Tate’s voice sounded oddly childlike – weak, pleading. Thus far, the only time Lana had heard him plead was when he first told her about Beau’s condition, but then his tone was far more self-assured and determined than it was now; then he was the parent, now he was the child.

 

Nora looked at Tate, and seemed to recognize him. Lana couldn’t rightly tell if Nora was glad to see him again.

 

“Thank you, Tate. You’ve always been kind to me, but as you said, I’ve been roaming this earth as a ghost for almost a century. I would prefer not to have to do so again.”

 

Tate took a step forward. Four pair of eyes narrowed at him, Grace sat straight up, ready to jump from her chair, but Tate only had eye for Nora. “Then let me do it for you. I will set you free.”

 

Was Tate now seriously offering Nora to kill her? If she said yes, what would happen? Would he procure a butterfly knife from his pocket and slash Nora’s throat right at the spot?

 

The four others looked warily at Tate, but Nora just shook her head in the negative. “If I choose to die, it will be by my own hand, or God’s, and no one else’s. I want you to save this deed for me.”

 

He smiled blissfully, and for one moment he looked like an ordinary teenager, until he shifted his gaze upon the third ghost in the room and his warm, innocent smile became broader and sharper.

 

“Hello, Patrick. I heard Chad hasn’t decided to show himself to your boring arse yet?”

 

Tate had killed Chad and Patrick. Tate had – though she didn’t like to ponder on that detail – shoven a fire-poker up his ‘boring arse’. The tension was obvious, but Patrick managed to remain cold and collected.

 

“And Lana.” Lana was determined to appear as calm as he did, and met his stare one on one. “I’ve been planning things for you. You got away that first time, but it only has given me time to think.”

 

“To think over your many sins, you mean?” His stare turned harder, and his smile faltered. It gave Lana joy to see him tick.

 

“Tate!” Mrs. Montgomery unexpectedly chided, to Lana’s surprise causing Tate to flinch. He actually seemed ashamed as he looked at Nora. “What have I said about you threatening people? Ms. Winters has been perfectly amiable this whole time.”

 

Tate shook his head. “She hasn’t. She alarmed the guards while we were escaping; me, Beau, Lana and Grace and Kit here. It is her fault we never made it out, it is _her fault_ Beau had to go back to Dr. Arden again.”

 

Mrs. Montgomery’s face softened, looking at the blond boy with sympathy. “Oh, Tate. Bad things always seem to happen to your brother, don’t they? I have only just met her, but I’m sure Lana never meant Beau any harm.” She quietly glanced at the reporter for confirmation, Lana shook her head in agreement. She’d never wished any pain on Beau, no matter what Tate seemed to believe.

 

Tate shook his head more fervently, tears springing in his eyes. He balled his fists, and had difficulty enunciating his words clearly. “Beau is dead.”

 

Nora’s eyes became very wide. “Oh, dear.”

 

“Dr. Arden killed him, w-we found his remains in the woods when we made a second escape attempt.” He wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands, but it had no use, tears rolled wildly from underneath them. Lana glanced at the rest of the room. Most inhabitants were locked in their own worlds or simply ignored them, just as the guards did. It was not the first time someone cried in a mad house.

 

“His body was ripped to pieces, there were mutants there that ate human flesh. Most parts were missing, I couldn’t even give him a proper burial.” Nora cautiously reached out for him, unsure how to comfort him. Kit too, looked sympathetic, and said softly his name to calm him down.

 

Suddenly, Tate whirled onto Kit, who jumped in his seated as Tate yelled at him. “AND YOU DON’T EVEN CARE!” His eyes furiously shot from Kit to Lana, Patrick and Grace, “None of you do, so don’t act as if!” he sneered at them viciously, “You all just want to comfort me because you want to feel good about yourselves, but when it comes down to actually _doing_ something about it, setting things straight, you all chicken out because it doesn’t fit in your pitch-perfect picture of life, because you’re all _so afraid_ of not being _liked_ anymore. Well, I don’t care if I’m liked or not, I will set this straight and _all of you will pay_.”

 

He started to storm away, but Grace had gotten hold of his upper arm. He gave her a glare that would have scared off lesser women, but Grace had seen plenty of her share of horror and was not intimidated. “You might not have noticed, probably because you hate talking to other people so much, but you’re not the only person in the world who has known pain kid. Certainly not in this place. Do you really think we have never been angry, have never wanted revenge over something?”

 

Tate turned around, using his relative height to glare down at her. “Tell me what horrible thing you have done to get in here.” he dared her.

 

Abruptly, Grace lost some of her bravado, swallowing and glancing nervously at Kit. Then she tilted her chin up, and stared Tate down along her nose.

 

“Have _you_ brought everything that ever went wrong in _your_ life out in the open? Have _you_ never kept a secret, never lied about anything?” she bounced back the question, but then thought of another strategy, “Have _you_ never done something you regret? Lana called the guards because she honestly thought Kit was a serial killer and she would bring others in danger if she let him free. She regrets that decision now, she has apologized and I may have not entirely forgiven her yet, I know she has made an honest _mistake_. She never wanted Beau to die, you might recall _she_ was the one who first told us all about her secret route, to help you and Beau escape.”

 

One could _see_ the cogs in Tate’s mind turning. “She did.” he said aloud in his consideration. Lana stomach churned, forcing herself to stare right back as he was eyeing her up, deciding if she should be murdered or not. It was hard to put the memories aside of how he held her down – waiting for those monsters to come and rip her apart alive, heartily laughing of joy in the streaming rain and playfully biting her neck. It was quite clear he saw people not as relatable beings, but as toys to play with or better yet, as mosquitoes he would squash when they bit him.

 

“But ‘thought’? You people don’t believe Kit is a killer?” Lana was slightly taken aback that, of course, most people still believed Kit to be Bloody Face, even though at this point _Tate_ would be a more likable culprit as far as Lana knew. (Theoretically, Tate could’ve escaped the asylum in his ghost form and murdered Wendy, and he even was crazy enough for it, but as that was as far as evidence against him went Lana was not really suspicious of him.) Grace responded in the affirmative.

 

Tate snorted derisively. “Well, I can honestly say I’ve never had any reason to think Kit _wasn’t_ a murderer, and I never had a problem setting him free if that meant Beau would be save and well. It’s a matter of priorities, and Lana would rather play the hero and stop the monster than see my brother and the rest of us save.” Awkward glances were exchanged among the group, not only had she prevented Tate’s and Beau’s escape, she’d stopped Grace as well that night and she still felt guilty about that. But Kit had said he’d have done the same, hadn’t he, were he in her place, and Grace had already then truly believed Kit’s innocence.

 

“Not setting serial killers free is the moral thing to do.” Patrick said, with a surprising silent rage, “But I guess you lack that morality, because why would you care about other serial killers when you are one yourself?”

 

“Ow, is that supposed to hurt me, _Pat_?” Tate did seem a bit ticked off, but tried to hide it behind his vileness.

 

“You killed me, you little fucker.” Patrick growled low enough that no one outside their little group could hear him, “You ruined my future for no reason at all, and you don’t even give a fuck. I’ll be damned before I’ll let you kill anyone else again.”

 

Tate raised his eye-brows mockingly. “I believe you are already damned. And I’d like to see you try.” He then turned around decisively and sped away attempting to look casual.

 

“This is not good.” Nora pronounced.

 

“No kidding,” Patrick said, “He’s basically openly confessed he’s still out to kill Lana.”

 

“Do you know what happened the last time Beau died?”

 

Patrick glanced at her uncertainly. “Not really.”

 

“Their stepfather had smothered Beau with a pillow. Tate had seen it but his mother denied it. He had been simmering for weeks, until one day he came home from school early and a few minutes later a whole swath of police officers fell into our house with raised guns and went up to his room. They shot Tate dead.”

 

Patrick cursed. Lana looked at him in confusion. “What happened? Why did the police kill Tate?”

 

Patrick was the one to answer.

 

“Tate killed sixteen teenagers that day…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like the thought of Nora buddying up with Hayden and working in a factory like a commoner. She may have been a rich, spoiled woman in life, she was also quite pragmatic: let's not forget that _she_ was the one coming up with the idea of the abortion clinic. I like to imagine that aristocratic, practical nature combined with the improbable experience of having been a confused ghost for the better part of a century has made Nora a very world-wise, levelheaded person despite her aloofness.
> 
> I also must admit I've always hated the character Hayden. Maybe it's because I'm a college-aged girl myself, but I think they could've made her an a lot more sympathetic character and still have her fulfill the role she had in the plot. I believe that would have made her a lot more interesting, believable _and_ relatable, but instead the writers decided to make her just another random psychopath who Ben just _happens_ to have an affair with. So well, I just imagine she lost her mind entirely after she became a ghost, and that that was the reason why she suddenly became worse than Tate after dying.


End file.
